Lewis Hamilton was dejected figure again after F1 Hungarian GP, as he took positives, while Frederic Vasseur understood his pain.
After a lowkey qualifying in F1 Hungarian GP at Hungaroring, Hamilton found himself outside points by the end of Sunday, even though he tried an alternate strategy. By the end of it, he was stuck in the fight for P10 against Andrea Kimi Antonelli and Isack Hadjar.
As is always the case with him, Hamilton didn’t feel as talkative and kept it to just few words. He didn’t wish to look at small margins as well. He played down any notion about not continuing with Ferrari after summer break, after harsh call on himself post qualifying.
“[I feel] same [like after qualifying],” said Hamilton to media. “[But] I look forward to coming back, I’ll be back, yeah [in Zandvoort]. Not particularly, the reality is not the case, the result is the result. I am sure there’s positives to take from the weekend, we will see. I am not sure [about small details].”
Beyond the frustration, Hamilton sees some improvements made since Belgium after the update on the car’s rear. “We’ve definitely made some improvements on the upgrades, and it is a shame that we’re not as competitive as the guys in front,” he said. “But we’ve seen Charles have a really strong run in the last two races, and the car is definitely progressing, so we have to keep trying to extract more from it.”
Vasseur, meanwhile, understood what Hamilton felt in the last couple of days, but played down any huge significance of it. He noted about the Brit being demanding, which is normal, since he is a seven-time champion. In fact, he states he is more demanding on himself than others.
“Yeah, he’s demanding, but I think it’s also why he’s seven times world champion, that he’s demanding with the team, with the car, with the engineers, with the mechanics, with myself also,” said Vasseur to media. “But, first of all, he’s very demanding with himself. It was, I think, always a good motivation for him and the main reason of performance.
“And, for sure, when you are seven times world champion, your teammate is in top position and you are out in Q2, it’s tough, it’s a tough situation. But, overall, we can also have a deep look that he was in front of Charles in Q1, who was on the first set, he was one tenth off in Q2. We were not far away to have the two cars out in Q2. And the outcome of this is that Charles, at the end, is able to be in pole position.
“But, honestly, the gap was not 1.2 seconds. But I can understand the frustration from Lewis, that this is normal. And we discussed a lot. The race was difficult because we took some bets. To start with hard tyre, when he was stuck in the DRS train, but when he was alone, the pace was good. I am sure that he will be back in the world and he will perform,” summed up Vasseur.
Elaborating further, Vasseur noted how difficult it has been even for Max Verstappen in Hungary. He noted that the recoveries for Hamilton in previous was possible, but circumstances at Hungaroring didn’t make it as much. He doesn’t think he is far off from Leclerc, even though he was out in Q2.
Also, he wants the media to avoid concluding things on the basis of one bad weekend. “Honestly, I’m not sure that it went…It’s difficult to say this,” continued Vasseur. “I’m sure that you will all give me tons of shit. But if you have a look on Q1, he was with the first set, he’s in front of Charles. The second one, he’s in one tenth of Charles. And at the end, Charles is doing the pole position.
“The issue is that when we were lacking performance and at risk, he did one lap two tenths slower than Charles and he was out in Q2. I don’t know if we were unlucky with Lewis or lucky with Charles to go through and to be able to compete in Q3 and to do the pole. But at the end of the day, it’s really on the edge. I think it was almost the same for Max that I spoke this morning with Laurent and they were quite close to be out.
“It’s so tight that you can go out and it’s not because you are out that you are nowhere. If you compete in Q3, then you can do a good result. It’s true that he had a very good recovery. I’m not an expert in statistics. He had a good recovery after Miami, Spain, Silverstone, Austria. He was matching Charles in Canada two or three times. He was even in front of Charles in quali. Last weekend, when he lost the car in Turn 14, he was six tenths faster than Charles.
“I know the game, you have to finish the lap and I know the game. You have to finish the race. It makes no sense to lead the race 40 laps if you are not able to finish. You have to avoid to go too quickly to the conclusion. I would prefer to do P1 and P1. But we already know that you could ask the same question to Max, that I think it’s a championship. This season is completely different. It’s very, very tight.
“When you are not into the pace, you can do P14 in quali. We know that in quali, it didn’t go well. Then we took some bets, and when you do a bet like this to start with us, you know that you can lose position or not. We lost. And then we did the bet also to go for one stop, because when you are P14 and you have a train of DRS, you have to do different,” summed up Vasseur.
Here’s Lewis Hamilton losing out to Max Verstappen: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2025-hungarian-gp-hamilton-drives-off-circuit-as-verstappen-squeezes-past.1839443345175070091
Here’s Charles Leclerc on radio call, issues
Here’s how F1 Hungarian GP panned out
